


Four hours past midnight

by Turnandfacethepaige



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: A little spicy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Re-union, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 06:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turnandfacethepaige/pseuds/Turnandfacethepaige
Summary: He had no reason to feel like this, he knew well. He had survived what others had not - had survived what others had thought he would not. He was still alive.Alive and cracking at the seams.





	Four hours past midnight

**Author's Note:**

> This is major canon divergence from the plot. In this one, Tsukiyama doesn't go to the CCG headquarters to meet Kaneki/Haise, and is able to gain back his sense of smell with his recovery, and most of the stuff with the Quinx squad doesn't happen. I wanted to write something about Kaneki and Tsukiyama's relationship in Tokyo Ghoul as a whole, and what Tsukiyama might think about it if he had the chance to reflect, so there's a load of stuff missing from the actual canon, but yea
> 
> If I got anything wrong pls correct me! And I hope you enjoy!

The clock on the bedside table isn’t working properly, he notes. It gives the time as quarter to ten in the evening, though he knows from his own watch that it’s almost four in the morning.

 

He must have forgotten to change the settings the last time he put the batteries in. It’s not like it’s important though; he hardly bothers to check it. He never sets an alarm anymore.

 

Tsukiyama sighs and cracks his neck, scratches his head and reaches down to pull up his pyjama bottoms.

 

He’s standing by the kitchen sink, his now lukewarm cup of coffee, still half-full, just on the edge, where it’s been for the past hour, as he sat and did nothing. The curtains hadn’t been drawn properly, and so a thick silver slab moonlight had slanted across the table, so bright that he could see the rest of the kitchen in it’s pearly glow. He’d made his coffee in it, watching the hot water darken and churn in his cup, even as the moon shone eerily around him.

 

Tsukiyama had woken up around midnight. This wasn’t unusual. His body sometimes had this strange setting that had cropped up in the past few months, where he’d be wide-awake at some un-godly hour, and couldn’t go back to sleep until near dawn. It was probably a side effect of all the missions he’d been on, his body adjusting to the sudden changes in his sleeping schedule, only to crop up when they weren’t wanted.

 

The last mission had been a while back, too long to remember. Maybe there will be no other one. But it should be a good thing that he is awake at this time of the night. It’ll be useful, somehow, later on.

 

But it isn’t.

 

Tsukiyama is tired.

 

He’s been tired for a long time. Not the kind that could be eased by sleeping in, and rolling around lazily for a day or so, watching numbing television dramas until he feels himself again. It was the kind that was bone-deep, seemed to wriggle in and in, like maggots on rotting flesh, until the days seemed to blur into one long stretch, and he was unable to discern where he was or had been.

 

It had gotten better, it had been worse, much worse, during the days when he had thought Kaneki had really gone.

 

Those days were a mixture of exhausted daydreams and horrific nightmares. A stretch of days, unbroken save for Kanae’s pleads and whispers, where not even the touch of time reached him. Days had bled into months, and with every passing one, Tsukiyama had felt his flesh wither, bone emerge from within himself, as he shrivelled and died as he had believed Kaneki had done so.

 

Strangely enough, he had dreamt vividly, despite the lack of food and the heart-break that had consumed him. He’d seen Kaneki dancing just before him, his cheeks flushed prettily pink just like he had done before when he had first met him, hair glossy and dark, jumping nervously and anxiously peering round the darkened room, looking through the gloom for Tsukiyama.

 

He could hear him, his voice whispering for Tsukiyama, asking him where he was, was he okay? Tsukiyama-san, what happened to you? And Tsukiyama would push past cracking bones and his exhaustion to reach for him, for that beautiful boy, to touch warm smooth skin, feel the heat beneath his fingers, to know that he was alive, not dead and rotting, and before him, just as he had been.

 

Sometimes it would be the Kaneki that had come after Aogiri, with snow-white hair seeming silver in the dim light of the room, his face missing the softness that he had had when the two had first met, instead all cheekbones and jawline, hard eyes searching for him from across the room. Black nails stark against milky skin as his slim hands would trail against the bed-spread, coming closer and closer to him. His voice was soft, almost husky, asking Tsukiyama why he was doing this to himself? What was he hoping to achieve from this?

 

He would be so close to reaching him too, hands up, stretching out to cradle his cheeks, and dream Kaneki would look shocked at the sight of his skeletal hands, bones protruding darkly from beneath his skin, and would reach out to hold him, hands coming to envelope him, and Tsukiyama would feel himself drawn closer, to this ghost who smelt of something that made him shiver and twitch, despite knowing full well his sense of smell had long since evaporated, and could practically feel the warmth, the texture, the smell all around him. He could hear the blood, thudding so loudly in his veins,

 

But then something would happen, a switch gone off in his head, and when he would open his eyes again, and he would be alone, hands reaching into empty air. A fool, alone in his room.

 

This role-play would happen again and again, Tsukiyama dreaming, Kaneki appearing, dancing ever closer to him, with all the promises that came with him, and then his eyes would snap open, and he’d be alone all over again. It was Chi’s photographs that arrived some time later, a sucker punch to his gut, of Kaneki, in the white coat and brief case of the CCG, that had snapped him out of the routine **.** It had practically gotten him up and out of bed right then and there, seeing Kaneki again, alive, alive and well and _existing_ somewhere in the city, no longer confined to hallucinations or dreams.

 

But even then, despite finding him again, and everything else that had come with that, whether for good or for bad, Tsukiyama couldn’t shake the tiredness that had gripped him in those months. It trailed after him, a hungry ghost, to latch on and keep him awake longer than he wanted. He had no reason to feel like this, he knew well. He had survived what others had not - had survived what others had thought _he_ would not. He was still alive.

 

Alive and cracking at the seams.

 

Tsukiyama swigs the last of his coffee, downing his cup in a single gulp.

 

One thing was for sure, if he really didn’t have a problem sleeping, then these late-night cups of coffee weren’t doing him any favours. He’d been having more and more as his sleeping schedule got progressively worse; having several during the day, and maybe one in the evening. It hadn’t happened before, not even during the days when he had drunk cup after cup for no other reason than taste, and that one episode where someone had bet him 20 000 yen that he couldn’t drink ten cups in one go and still be alright afterwards. He had, and he was, and though 20 000 yen the richer, he had spent the rest of the day twitching and had at one point wondered what it would be like to climb up the living room curtains.

 

The person who had made the bet hadn’t been. No less than two months later, they’d been killed in the streets of Tokyo, slaughtered like a pig, and left to rot in the streets. He’d only heard after Kaneki’s death. He couldn’t even remember their name.

 

Or maybe that had been it. That he had survived those changes, and in the process had changed with them. Nobody got out of nothing as terrible as a lightning strike without carrying something out with them.

 

So much had changed around him - it would make sense that he would too. His fortunes, his friends, the world around him.

 

Even Kaneki.

 

It _is_ Kaneki, he’s sure of it. Even if his hair is different, his name, the softness of his voice, the calmness that seems to enfold him.

 

He first met Tsukiyama in the street, surrounded by a gaggle of mismatched teenagers, Tsukiyama purposefully brushing his shoulders against his own, so that his head turned, brown eyes turning tohim, widening slightly as they had seen him. Tsuikyama had felt his heart spasm within him, jolting to his throat, making it difficult to breathe, feeling the heat through his jacket, smelling, though hidden beneath layers of false scent so strong it sickening, the beautiful, delicious smell Kaneki had carried with him when he lived, knowing that it meant he really was alive - that it was a real body, not just a dream.

 

Somewhere in this stranger lies the boy he once knew.

 

Or perhaps not. They’ve changed so much, Kaneki and him, from the people they used to be. Tsukiyama can’t pinpoint the exact moment that he stopped craving Kaneki’s flesh, his scorching blood, and began to crave his flesh in other ways, craving other aspects that he previously never would have thought of.

 

It’s not love, this thing that they have - they had. Lust had pushed that out of the way the night that he had lured Kaneki to the auction house, and obsession had destroyed any hopes of anything more normal after the snapping of bones in the aisles of a church. And after Aogiri - Kaneki was never the same again. Hardened, sharp, a jagged piece of steel that didn’t particularly care if anything in its way was cut in two, no matter how much he tried to conceal it. Tsukiyama had kneeled before him, offered himself as a knife, a blade to hide beneath his pillow to strike whenever he wanted, and even then he had seen the rage emanating from within him, a rage that had been hidden by his previously soft-spoken, shy self.

 

They had fucked around then, one night stands that occurred too many times to be a one time thing. It was hard and fast, Kaneki clawing his trousers off and practically snarling when Tsuikyama hadn’t been quick enough for his liking. In the dim lighting, he could see the chords of muscle thrumming beneath his skin, muscle that hadn’t been there before, had been built from spartan training underground, from the fury and rage that pushed him, drove him, even if he tried to deny it.

 

But when it was in the heat of hot flesh and scrabbling hands down backs, Tsukiyama saw that Kaneki’s eyes clenched tight, his face screwed up almost in pain, mouth twisted so that in any other circumstance, one would think he was crying, an echo of the boy he used to be.

 

Tsukiyama had never asked Kaneki about it, never thought to do so either, mostly because he didn’t want Kaneki ripping him a new whatever should he ask him the wrong question, but also because he was finally close to Kaneki the way he wanted to be, finally had the relationship with him, however twisted, that he had been wanting for the longest time.

 

Even now - almost two months since he had bumped into him purposefully in the street, and _months_ after he had seen Kaneki on that rooftop - Tsukiyama could still make out those moments of pain. It hadn’t taken long for him to lure Kaneki into his bed again; Tsukiyama had simply walked into a coffee shop a few weeks after the bump and found Kaneki sitting near the door, head of black and white hair bent over a book and a cup of coffee. It had been too good a chance to miss up, and Tsukiyama had slid into the chair next to him and chattered to him about the book he was reading, about books he hadn’t but should be, about books and coffee, and everything else in-between. Kaneki had agreed to meet up with him again, parting with a shy smile and a little blush on his cheeks, and the next time they did, Tsukiyama had been successful in taking him back home, running his hand gently down his back as the pair had crossed the threshold, which, from the way Kaneki seemed to stop, look at him, soft eyes growing darker beneath his soft hair, had been the correct move.

 

As they had rolled around in Tsukiyama’s bed that night, after Tsukiyama had greedily peeled Kaneki from his layers of coat and uniform - Kaneki fumbling a little with his own button up and suit jacket - he saw it, as clearly as he had seen it before, the pain that seemed to register, almost confused with pleasure, how Kaneki’s eyes scrunched so tightly against his sweaty cheeks he looked almost in agony, and his hands had knotted so tightly in Tsukiyama’s hair, he could only imagine the knuckles standing out underneath them, as harsh as a table edge. When he had orgasmed, jerking and twitching in his hands, Kaneki’s cry sounded more like a wail of heartbreak than it had anything else. It seemed to quiet him a little, to know that despite the name he was passing himself off as, his new image, it was still Kaneki there, beneath this meaningless appearance. That he had finally found a pinpoint, a set of co-ordinates to return to in this crazy world.

 

A pin-point that did not know him, that did not remember him - that only saw him as a sweet smile above a steaming cup of coffee, a pair of hands that slipped between his thighs, arms to snuggle into when all had been completed for an evening.

 

A co-ordinate that did not know the compass’ true nature.

 

Tsukiyama doesn’t want to dwell on that thought for too long. He had gone through so much, to claim one little slice back that he could find comfort in, only to find it churning into curd in his hands. The thought of losing Kaneki, no matter who he pretended to be, felt like a punch in the gut. Kaneki didn’t even know that he was a ghoul - that he was so similar to him, that he felt the same urges, the same cravings, felt the same bone-deep hunger that had haunted their kind since their beginning. That their connection wasn’t reliant on books and coffee alone.

 

He had left him in his bedroom. He had stayed the night, arriving dressed smartly in trousers and a jumper, politely waving off Tsukiyama’s offer of a snack, saying he had eaten earlier. They’d drunk some coffee, and then sat down to watch a film together, dropping it half-way and making their way over to the bedroom instead. As he stepped out of the bedroom to the kitchen, he had stood on the sweater, curled like a silken pedigree around one of the legs of the bed, bringing a waft of Kaneki’s scent, distilled, but still there, to his nostrils.

 

There’s a heaviness to his eyes that he recognises as sleep, thinks that heading to bed, no matter how long it could take to fall asleep would be better than this, standing in an unlit kitchen in his pyjamas, staring like some weirdo at the kitchen sink as he contemplates the state he’s somehow in.

 

Whatever it is that weighs him down, it’d probably nicer to think it over lying in a comfy bed, lying next to someone he thought he’d never find again; the tiniest reminder, no matter how damaged, or distorted, that he managed to come back to something precious. That he managed to find Kaneki all over again.

 

He has plenty of time to understand what’s holding him back. He and Kaneki have all the time in the world.

 

He hopes so.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, Trash Man is still one of my favourite characters in Tokyo Ghoul even though I lost interest in it a while back, and I still stick around for art and stuff of him. Tsukikane was, and still is one of my fave ships, and I just wanted to write something about the relationship when it's long past the one they had in season one and its now super complicated. 
> 
> I also haven't written anything nice and shippy for ages, as it's mostly been essays and analysis of poetry and other stuff, so it was nice to just head back for the basics and write something I enjoyed for once.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed and it wasn't too angsty! Thank you!


End file.
